For me it all started back in the wonder years that was dubbed N.W.O.B.H.M. As a child the likes of Rainbow/Deep purple/Led Zep were always what I’d sit up to when subjected to T.O.T.P.
I started out a dedicated metal fan. Every week I’d grab my pathetic wage from the man and budget thus: Rent/Album/Tee Shirt/Beer and ticket money. Somehow, I avoided starving to death and would make my way up to either the West end/Camden to visit the shops and meet up with other metal heads. Then off to the Britannia pub in Hammersmith where we had made our home back in the day. With the world-famous Hammersmith Odeon 200 yards over the road and the Clarendon Hotel venue and Hammersmith Palais just around the corner we were in Muso heaven.
Now watching all these wonderful bands was urging me to get more involved. I wanted to do what they were doing, and the passion I found in the thrash movement was the tipping point.
Now you would probably think spending night after night in a bedroom executing frantic hand movements with solid determination is not unusual for a young teenage lad (Cleanse your minds!) but playing along to the likes of Metallica/Slayer/Exodus/Anthrax every night was how I learnt and practiced. Now adding the music shops of London’s Tin Pan alley to my weekly pilgrimage I was hooked. Patches all over my cut off (Iron Maidens Killers was my favourite) and guitar in hand I started to look for a band.
A band called ‘Good Question’ was formed with some friends and life stayed the same ever since. I have been lucky to play and learn from some great musicians and the experience gained with the likes of Burnt Ashes, Turbulence, Fer De Lance (If you play Elite, you’ll know why!), Dead Zone, Legion, Enemy Unknown, Raze are irreplaceable and have led me to where I wanted to be.
Dead Before Mourning started hatching in my brain, riffing away on my sofa thinking “hey that’s a cool riff, wonder what beat would go with that?”. As all musicians I carried on thinking about it whilst my missus gave me a kick in the arse and pushed me to get the ball rolling, and I’m glad I listened. Steve Ebsworth was next to arrive, and indeed the pair of us got to work with all the fun bits. Tunes, band names (mostly too rude to list!), artwork (my contribution on art is purely hypothetical, I cannot draw for toffee). Then we hooked up with Mr. Dom Harvey, it was like we designed him! Another amazing talent with all things music and purveyor of pure genius riffs. Topping it of was Pat McGarvey on bass. Pat’s sense of humour and technical bass style was on form so we set off.
In 2017 Pat parted company with DBM so we set out to find a replacement. All seemed a bit ‘two steps backwards’ until the arrival of Mr. Stephen Mussett. Within two weeks he was on the case and 100 percent committed to the cause, quickly becoming a vital cog in the DBM machine and a bloody good friend to boot, Everything was finally ready for Killing Time……..
